LONDON - People arriving in England from more than 50 countries including France, Spain, Germany and Italy will no longer need to quarantine from 10 July, the Department for Transport has confirmed.
A full list of exempt countries posing "a reduced risk" from coronavirus will be published later.
Most travellers to the UK currently have to self-isolate for two weeks.
The Foreign Office is also changing its blanket advice against all non-essential foreign travel from Saturday.
The quarantine restrictions only came into force in early June, in a bid to stop coronavirus entering the country at a time when UK infections were falling.
The new exemptions mean people arriving from selected countries will be able to enter England without needing to self-isolate, unless they have been in or travelled through non-exempt countries in the preceding 14 days.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told the BBC the full list of "50 plus" exempt countries would be published on Friday afternoon.
He said countries on the list would be labelled as either amber or green, in line with a traffic-light system based on their prevalence of coronavirus.
All amber countries - including France, Germany, Italy and Spain - would have "reciprocal arrangements" in place, meaning travellers from the UK will not have to quarantine on arrival there either, Mr Shapps said.
There would also be a red list of countries, including the US, for which restrictions would remain in place, Mr Shapps said.
And countries categorised as green, which have "very low" levels of coronavirus, would have restrictions for UK arrivals, he said.
"I take New Zealand as a good example. They do have restrictions when you arrive, but we thought it was right to include them [on the UK's list of exempt countries] because people may want to come here from New Zealand, and that's no particular threat to our hard-won gains that everyone's been going through, staying at home," he said.
He said Greece would not be on the amber list to begin with, because the country was currently not allowing flights from the UK.
Countries that will be either on the green or amber list include some of the UK's overseas territories such as Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands, Mr Shapps said, as well as smaller states such as the Vatican.
Mr Shapps said he had "held off" from his announcement in the hope that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would reach a decision at the same time as England.
The Scottish and Welsh governments have not yet decided whether to ease restrictions on international travel, while in Northern Ireland, quarantine regulations remain in place for people arriving from outside the UK and the Republic of Ireland.
Mr Shapps said there was "still an opportunity" for the devolved nations to match England's decision ahead of the changes coming into effect on 10 July.
"I very much hope that we can do this as four nations at the same time - I think it would just simplify it for people a great deal - but they will need to make that decision themselves," he said.(FA)
